Lawmakers send letter to 20 crypto firms soliciting diversity data

A coalition of US Representatives led by House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is asking the nation's most prominent crypto firms to deliver data on their diversity practices.

Waters, along with Reps. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, Al Green, D-Texas,  Bill Foster, D-Ill.,, and Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., sent a letter to 20 crypto firms, urging them to provide more information on their inclusion practices. The data will give the lawmakers a "snapshot" of "how and whether the industry is working toward a more equitable environment for everyone."

The letter to the companies includes a questionnaire on what diversity and inclusion practices they had in effect as of last year. The questionnaire was not made publicly available, however.

"There is a concerning lack of publicly available data to effectively evaluate the diversity among America’s largest digital assets companies, and the investment companies with significant
investments in these companies," the letter said.

Lawmakers are asking "the nation's 20 largest crypto, Web3, and digital assets companies, as well as prominent venture capital firms with investments in crypto" to provide that data. Aave, Andreessen Horowitz, Binance.US, Circle, Coinbase, Crypto.com, Digital Currency Group, FTX, Gemini, Haun Ventures, Kraken, OpenSea, PancakeSwap, Paradigm, Paxos, Ripple, Sequoia Capital, Stellar Development Foundation, Tether and UniSwap round out the list of recipients. 

The letter gives firms less than a month to respond to the survey, setting a September 2 deadline.